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Tag: Clifford Jordan

2025

Tuesday, April 22nd

Happy (103rd) Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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lagniappe

radio

WKCR-FM (Columbia University): all Mingus, all day. 

*****

* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

** “So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

*** “So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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2024

Monday, April 22nd

Happy (102nd) Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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lagniappe

radio

All Mingus, all day: WKCR-FM (Columbia University).

*****

* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

** “So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

*** “So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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2023

Saturday, April 22nd

Happy (101st) Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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lagniappe

radio

All Mingus, all day: WKCR-FM (Columbia University).

*****

reading table

This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.

—Donald Justice (1925-2004), from “Poem”

*****

* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

** “So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

*** “So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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2022

Friday, April 22nd

Happy 100th Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), (live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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lagniappe

radio

All Mingus, all day (tomorrow, too): WKCR-FM (Columbia University).

*****

random sights

other day, Oak Park, Ill.

*****

*”So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

**”So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

***”So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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2020

Thursday, October 29th

timeless

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 1922-1979, bass; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), “So Long Eric” (C. Mingus), live, Norway (Oslo), 1964

 

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Chicago

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2018

Monday, January 22nd

voices I miss

Von Freeman (MCOTD Hall of Fame), tenor saxophonist, 1923-2012

“Oleo” (S. Rollins) with Clifford Jordan (tenor saxophone), Willie Pickens (piano), Dan Shapera (bass), Robert Shy (drums), Chicago (Chicago Jazz Festival), 1988

 

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“Take the ‘A’ Train” (B. Strayhorn) with Joanie Pallatto (vocals), Bettye Reynolds (vocals), Fred Anderson (tenor saxophone), Billy Brimfield (trumpet), John Young (piano), George Freeman (guitar), Larry Gray (bass), Michael Adams (drums), live, Chicago, 1999

 

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lagniappe

my back pages

On a cold, snowy night forty-one years ago, at a church thirty miles north of Chicago, Von Freeman and John Young played at our—Suzanne’s and my—wedding. All of what they played that night—”Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “It Never Entered My Mind,” “More” (before); “In a Sentimental Mood” (as Suzanne walked down the aisle); “My Favorite Things,” “Song for My Father” (after)—can be heard here (0:15-). Years later, John told me: “When I marry ’em, they stay married.”

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2015

Thursday, April 23rd

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Mingus!

Charles Mingus, composer, bandleader, bassist
April 22, 1922-January 5, 1979

Better late than never for someone who, like Miles and Monk, Bach and Beethoven, I couldn’t live without.

Charles Mingus (bass) with Eric Dolphy (alto saxophone, bass clarinet, flute), Clifford Jordan (tenor saxophone), Johnny Coles (trumpet), Jaki Byard (piano), Dannie Richmond (drums), live, Belgium, Norway, and Sweden, 1964*


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

There’s something about listening to Eric Dolphy that makes you feel glad to be alive.

—Cliff Preiss, DJ, WKCR (Columbia University), yesterday (Mingus birthday broadcast)

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*Set lists (courtesy of YouTube):

Belgium
00:00-00:45 Intro
00:46-05:33 So Long Eric
05:35-11:20 Peggy’s Blue Skylight
11:23-32:03 Meditations On Integration

Norway
32:30-54:46 So Long Eric
56:30-1:11:40 Orange Was The Color Of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk
1:13:53-1:16:20 Parkeriana
1:16:22-1:29:05 Take The “A” Train

Sweden
1:30:05-1:33:55 So Long Eric
1:34:02-1:52:35 Meditations On Integration
1:52:40- 1:59:50 So Long Eric

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2012

Wednesday, 7/4/12

 rock ’n’ roll

 country

 gospel

 blues

 jazz

A world without American music: what would it sound like?

The Blasters, “American Music,” Champaign, Ill., 1985

(Originally posted 7/5/10.)

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Merle Haggard, “Lonesome Fugitive,” Buck Owens Ranch Show, 1966

(Originally posted 4/6/12.)

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Slim and the Victory Aires, “Alright Now,” Paducah, Ky., 2008

(Originally posted 3/11/12)

*****

Johnny Shines (1915-1992), vocals, guitar; David “Honeyboy” Edwards (1915-2011), guitar; Big Walter Horton (1917-1981), harmonica; “For The Love of Mike,” 1978

(Originally posted 10/4/11.)

*****

Von Freeman, tenor saxophone; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone (first solo); Willie Pickens, piano; Dan Shapera, bass; Robert Shy, drums; “Oleo” (S. Rollins), Chicago (Chicago Jazz Festival), 1988

(Originally posted 5/3/12.)

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lagniappe

radio

All Pops, all day:

Tune in on July 4th, Independence Day . . . as we celebrate the professed (although according to historians, not actual) birthday of Jazz great and American Hero, the trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong, by playing 24 hours straight of his music, from midnight to midnight.

—WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)

*****

encore*

Dave Alvin with the Blasters, “4th of July,” Berwyn, Ill. (Fitzgerald’s), 2010

*By popular demand (see Comments).

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2012

Thursday, 5/3/12

Weary of words?

You’ve come to the right place.

These guys take you places words don’t go.

Von Freeman,* tenor saxophone; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone (first solo); Willie Pickens, piano; Dan Shapera, bass; Robert Shy, drums; “Oleo” (S. Rollins), live, Chicago (Chicago Jazz Festival), 1988

More Clifford? Here.

More Von? Here. And here. And here.

*MCOTD Hall of Fame (Charter Member).

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2012

Monday, 4/23/12

Charles Mingus Quintet,* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations On Integration” (all by Mingus), live (TV show), Belgium, 1964

Mingus’s music, it seems, has everything. Call it “simple” or “complex” and you’d be both right and wrong—it’s both. Compositional elegance is balanced, exquisitely, with improvisational unruliness. Rhythmic momentum is no less—and no more—important than melodic invention. Like Ellington and Monk, he will, I’m confident, still be listened to a hundred years from now.

(Excerpts from this program have been posted previously.)

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Ludovico Carracci, The Vision of Saint Francis, c. 1602

Going to the Art Institute again, after being away for a while, I felt a bit like someone who doesn’t realize he’s starving until he finds himself at a feast.

*****

*CM, bass; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Jaki Byard, piano; Dannie Richmond, drums.

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